I, Robot
Dennis Hong’s amazing machines have dazzled the world. But he’s still working toward the dream of having his own personal humanoid butler.
Originally posted on UCLA Magazine
A long time ago in a theater not far away, 7-year-old Dennis Hong sawStar Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope and found his life’s purpose.
It was not the groundbreaking special effects that hooked the child in that Los Angeles movie palace, nor the charismatic heroes, the especially dastardly villain, or even the rousing score by Bruin John Williams ’53.
No, the moment of revelation was the arrival of the first two characters the audience experiences in what would become an everlasting saga: the British-accented humanoid robot C-3PO and his chirpy pal, the trash-can–shaped R2-D2.
“From that moment, all I wanted was a humanoid robot butler and I knew I would have to build him myself,” recalls Hong, the son of two professors. (His father, from South Korea, was also an engineer.)
To say it became his life’s work is no overstatement. A professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, Hong has for the past 11 years overseen the school’s Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa). Today, his assortment of 50-plus robots come in all shapes and sizes, from human-ish to snakelike. One can run up walls, while another can dance to a beat; one lifts heavy weights, while another can skip across water. At TED Talks and in live demonstrations, they are stars who turn audiences wide-eyed with wonder.
Cycle through nine “collectible cards,” featuring some of Dennis Hong and RoMeLa’s most fascinating bots, below:
Earlier this year, RoMeLa built COSMO, a real-life version of the CGI-generated robot starring in the 2025 Netflix film The Electric State. Hong’s life-size Cosmo traveled the world promoting the movie alongside co-stars Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt — with UCLA’s practical bot arguably a bigger hit than the film itself.
The robots that Hong has designed all have specific purposes, either as stand-alone units or as part of bigger machines. Hong is looking at designs for robots that can aid in search-and-rescue missions or deep mining, and for others capable of scaling the cliffs on Mars as part of a future Rover mission. Yet in an odd coincidence, the robots have broadly followed the contrasting blueprints of the two original Star Wars characters C-3PO and R2-D2.
Watch a video of BALLU breakdancing (among other feats):
When it was introduced in 2023, ARTEMIS was the fastest-walking humanoid robot ever created, moving at 2.5 meters per second. But Hong quickly discovered that these types of robots often fall over, so he’s pivoted a bit to work on machines with lower centers of gravity — more like R2-D2 — and multiple legs that can bend sideways. The hope is that the best of each can be merged.
The other big transformation, favored by younger scientists, Hong says, is combining mechanical structures and artificial intelligence. “We are looking at that, but unlike robots like ARTEMIS — where we build every element and we know what makes things go wrong — with these new AI models, we know they work but we are not quite sure how,” he says. He calls it a “black box”: Data goes in, and good results come out, but engineers are still not entirely sure what’s going on. Hong says it is a slightly unsettling prospect for the future development of robotics.
Meanwhile, Hong concedes that despite advances in technology, his dream of a Jetsons-style robot butler that folds laundry and serves hot beverages remains far, far away from reality. But, he says with a smile, it’s getting closer every day.